Geocaching: What is it? (part 1/5)

05Jun

Many of my friends wish they could tag along on my adventures around the world….

Hey, wait for me???

and I must admit it’s amazing to travel to the places I’ve been, but Geocaching is a great adventure of it’s own. And it happens in every corner of the world, so even if the nearest State Park is the farthest from home you’ll ever get, you too CAN have your own FAMILY ADVENTURE….

So, in honor of SUMMER and VACATIONS, I’m going to write a series of blog posts that describe the “how-to’s” and “Joys” of GEOCACHING…

Geocaching: What is it? (part 1)

So, what is this family-fun activity? It’s part ‘treasure-hunting’ part ‘scavenger hunting’ and part ‘hiking’.

Doesn’t geocaching look fun?

Small and large ‘treasure boxes’ called CACHES or GEOCACHES

Geocaching containers come in a variety of sizes and shapes

are hidden ALL over the world. Yes, that’s right ALL over the world (over 100 countries including America), which means that no matter where YOU live- there’s probably a CACHE near you. 🙂

How many ‘treasure boxes’ are located around the world? Around 2 MILLION. Wow, that’s quite a LOT of treasure to go find!

Not like the pirates….

But the difference is we’re not PIRATES…. and we use modern technology!

How do we find the Treasure?

Modern technology has allowed us to move beyond paper and pen (thank goodness) and today’s Treasures are monitored by latitude and longitude in the world of Geopositioning technology (think Satellites in outer space beaming around information…).

Hey, this way to the TREASURE BOX!

Each GPS (just like the one your mom uses in the car to find the grocery store) is a latitude/longitude mapping program that allows us to move from one location (home) to the next (the TREASURE box or cache)!

If we put in our home coordinates, we can use this technology to find ALL the CACHES in our area! It really is that simple. The GPS guides us to the CACHE and we scoop up all the loot! Well, not really, but we’ll cover geocaching rules later.

So, are you interested? I sure hope so. Come back next Tuesday and we’ll cover Part 2: Getting Started. I’ll cover topics such as: